The purification spell took a couple hours to finish, mostly because it wasn’t easy to balance. It seemed that poison was an aspect of death magic, while disease sprang from blood magic, and the purification spell basically used solar raju to burn those elements from anything they touched. The heat of the spell repelled me, but simply adding lunar raju to balance it made it useless. The cooled magic actually made the contaminants worse instead of destroying them, meaning I had a great spell to spoil food or contaminate water but not quite what I wanted.

“You could just try using bestial magic to balance the spell,” Sara pointed out after the first hour. “Of course, to do that, you’d have to unlock bestial magic – and that would mean convincing Renica to use it repeatedly so you can analyze it.”

“Yeah, I’d prefer to avoid that,” I thought back. “Any other options?”

“For unlocking bestial magic? Of course. You can wait for the next time Fiare’s close…”

“No, the spell, smartass,” I thought back at her. “Maybe instead of destroying the impurities, we could just remove them or something. Could I scoop them up with magic and take them out of it, or leach them out through osmosis or something?”

“That – might be possible,” she replied. “Clever idea, John. Not the scooping part – that wouldn’t work – but the osmosis part. Here, try this...”

What we ended up with was creating an aura above the food or drink that drew any contamination out of it into the air, where the solar raju disposed of it.

Spell Created: Twilight Purification

Raju Required: 14 solar, 6 lunar (4 death, 2 blood)

You draw unnatural impurities from an object and destroy them.

Okay, so it couldn’t remove any contaminant, only unnatural ones like poison or disease. It was totally useless for something like desalinating sea water – I tried – or removing dirt or mud from something. It did seem to work on food and water, though, so when the captain asked me to his cabin for dinner that night, I accepted, used the spell while he blessed the food, and ate without care. I had no idea if the food was drugged or poisoned since the spell didn’t show me that, but at least I didn’t have to worry about passing out and waking up at the bottom of the ocean.

Of course, Renica remained in her cabin for meals since she didn’t want to join me and neither of us really trusted the crew. I made the excuse that she only ate with her cairnik as part of the process of keeping Vikarik tame, and the captain either accepted that excuse or didn’t care enough to question me.

The voyage passed smoothly enough. The next day, my sword training escalated a notch, as the good captain had me practicing parries against him for a solid thirty minutes, then taught me a few forms I could use to train while he returned to his duties. That afternoon, he showed me how to use my dagger as a parrying tool as well, freeing up my sword for attacks. Every morning and afternoon, we worked together for an hour training my blade, while I spent another two hours working on my own with the sword, my dagger, or my hatchet.

I ate Highsun and evening meals with the captain, and he did most of the talking once he realized I wasn’t going to volunteer any information about my identity, family, or life. He mostly spoke about sailing, the various ports he’d gone to, and how the ship worked. I found that last bit fascinating, especially when he talked about how he used the stars, moons, and sun for navigation. I asked enough questions that he decided to simply show me, and after that, I spent another hour each day alongside the navigator, mostly just watching and asking questions about how the man did his job.

I took some time every day to read through the books I’d taken from Borava, as well. Three of them were history books, which didn’t surprise me a bit considering Vasily’s library. The first looked to be written by someone who lived before the Himlenrik Empire – and who wasn’t overly friendly to the invading Larjeeni. It talked about the Noviladan civilization before the Larjeeni arrived, and according to the author, the Larjeeni really oversold their services to the natives of this land. The Noviladans lived in cities built primarily of darkwood, which supposedly grew in far more places back then, and their civilization flourished when the invaders arrived. The writer spoke of their technology, which seemed to be about the same level as early medieval Europe, and their culture, which appeared to be rich and flourishing.

What the long-dead historian didn’t mention was the moon-cursed. Either the creatures weren’t important enough for them to include in their history, or the moon-cursed weren’t a problem back then. I supposed that the Noviladans’ abilities with lunar magic might have kept them safe – perhaps they could control or turn the creatures the way I had – but it seemed that if that were the case, the author would have made a point of mentioning it. After all, this felt like a propaganda piece, a book written to show how advanced the Noviladans were and how great their civilization was. The author wanted the Larjeeni to look bad, and showing how well the Noviladans managed the moon-cursed would have been a way to do that.

The other option, I supposed, was that there just weren’t any moon-cursed around during that time. If that were true, then sometime between then and now, the moon-cursed appeared. Something changed, and another thing that the author never mentioned gave me an idea for what it might have been. Not once in the entire book did the author say a single word about the moons, plural. Every mention was of “the moon” – and he mentioned it a lot.

That suggested to me that the Lomoraji had been right. Long ago, there was only a single moon, and at some point, it shattered, becoming the three moons hanging in the sky. That seemed like a logical trigger for the advent of the moon-cursed, and it made me wonder if that was the reason I was in this world. Was I supposed to put the moon back together? If so, I was going to be in this world for a long time; I had nowhere near the knowledge and power to do something like that!

The second and third books told more of the story of the Himlenrik Empire. They recounted much of what Vasily had already told me but added more details, such as the dates that various important events happened and the names of people of importance. None of it really added a great deal to what I knew; the chronicles ended before the Empire’s fall, so I had no clue what might have caused it. I glanced up into the sky at the moons floating overhead and shook my head. At least, I had no proof of that cause.

“That might have done it,” Sara agreed with me. “If the Imperial Rajis used twilight magic the way I think they did, then destroying the moon would have drastically altered their magic. Their spells might have failed them completely, or at least worked in a much different fashion. It would have been easy for the Vanatori to hunt them down at that point.”

“Could this last Empress have destroyed the moon?” I asked silently.

“Not unless the world’s magical rating was much, much higher back then,” Sara said firmly.

“What does that have to do with it?”

“A world’s MR isn’t just a measure of how powerful spells are, John. It’s a measure of how much magical energy is available, how stable spells are, and how densely that energy can be packed together. Those factors determine the maximum power any spell in a given world can hold.

“Compared to your Earth, Soluminous probably feels like a powerfully magical world, but in reality, it’s slightly below average for a Doorworld. Cracking a planetoid large enough that it formed the three moons we see now would require a terrific amount of power, essentially the majority of the power field of this entire planet concentrated into a small area, creating a magical density far beyond what’s stable in this world. Your spell would explode long before you could cast it.”

“So, the moon blowing up didn’t happen?” I asked.

“Oh, I’m not saying that. It could have, but if it did, it wasn’t a spell that did it – at least, not unless the rules of magic on this world changed drastically from then to now. Some fast-moving astronomical body could have done it; an extremely dense asteroid moving at a decent fraction of the speed of light could have cracked the moon, especially if it already had fracture lines along which it ruptured. An explosion of that magnitude should have had significant effects on the world, but since we haven’t seen much of this world, that’s distinctly possible.”

The final book was the most interesting one, in many ways. The cover gleamed with blocky Imperial script that read simple, “Casting Primer, Level 3”, the follow-up to the book I’d already gotten from the Lomoraji. Like the level 2 primer, the first half of this book consisted mostly of magical theory, while the second half contained spells and rituals. The theories of this book, though, went into much greater detail, describing esoteric mathematics that could be used to calculate the needed components of a ritual and how to balance the outcomes, as well as a great deal of physics describing how magical energies flowed and functioned. Most of it went right over my head, of course, but Sara seemed to understand it well enough to walk me through it.

Unfortunately, much of that math also seemed wrong. When I finally made some sense of it after the third night of study, I tried to use it to improve my spells. Instead of stabilizing them, though, the formulae left the spells heavily imbalanced and very unstable, nearly on the edge of collapsing. As I restored my Twilight Illumination spell to its previously stable configuration, Sara appeared before me, looking thoughtful and satisfied.

“It’s just as I suspected, John. Assuming those calculations were accurate during the days of the Empire, the fundamental nature of magic in this world somehow changed since then. The equations for incorporating lunar raju are simply wrong. I’ll try to backtrack the equations and see if they’d work assuming a single moon with the metaphysical mass of the three moons combined.”

“Metaphysical mass?” I repeated with a snort. “What’s that?”

“Just another way of saying magical power. In any case, that should provide strong evidence that at one point, the moon was a single object.”

“We’re pretty sure of that now, Sara,” I pointed out.

“Well, yes, but that’s not the same as being certain. There’s still plenty of room for error, after all.”

I did manage to use the level two primer to fashion a single spell during the trip, however, one that I wished I’d had back at the Cathedral.

Spell Created: Twilight Unbinding

Raju Required: Variable

You use your twilight raju to shatter an existing spell. This requires an expenditure of raju equal to 20% of the total raju used in the spell being destroyed, two-thirds of which is solar raju and one-third lunar raju.

All of the training, studying, and learning had additional effects, as well.

Profession: Scholar has gained a level

New Level: 4

For every level of Scholar, you gain:

Reason +1 (+2 Total)

Profession: Investigator has gained a level

New Level: 2

For every level of Investigator, you gain:

Reason, Perception +1, 1 Skill Point

Skill: Weapon Focus (Light Swords) has gained a level

Weapon Focus (Light Swords): Initiate 3

Benefit: +1% Defense per rank

Skill: Astronomy has gained a level

Astronomy: Initiate 1

Benefit: +1% Spell stability to celestial magic per rank

Skills Gained

Skill: Navigation

Neophyte 2

-1% to travel time per rank for journeys of 1 mile or longer

Skill: Arcane Calculus

Neophyte 1

+2% to spell stability per rank

Stats Gained

Through rigorous training, you have gained the following stat increases:

Vigor +1, Skill +1

Profession Chosen:

Sailor

Common

Primary Stats:

Skill

Ability Gained:

Sea Legs

Ability: Sea Legs

Passive Physical Ability

Your balance is improved by 25%, +2% per level of your Sailor profession.

I chose the Sailor profession the moment it appeared, since Sara told me I’d gain a tiny bit of passive XP in it simply for being aboard a ship. She was right, as always; every day aboard the Eye gave me 10 XP or so. I also got XP to my Warrior profession from the weapons training and both Scholar and Investigator for the research I’d done.

“How does that work?” I asked Sara as I stared at the level up notifications. “I thought you needed to capture life energy from a defeated foe to boost my XP.”

“Actually, I’m using your energy to do that, John,” she corrected.

“Wait, my energy? You’re taking energy from me to level up my professions?”

“No, I’m recapturing energy you’ve lost. You see, when you’re training like this, you’re actually tapping into this world’s energy field and using it to improve yourself. It’s something you can do thanks to your Inquisitorial Seal, and it’s one reason why you improve yourself so quickly. However, you’re not perfectly efficient – no one is – so you only use some of the energy you draw. I capture as much of that power as I can and funnel it into whichever profession is most closely linked to whatever you were doing.”

“Why can’t you just add all that power to my Inquisitor profession, instead? Wouldn’t that be a better use of it?”

“Not really, no. When you use the energy, you contaminate it slightly with whatever you used it for, giving it something like a flavor or texture. Each of your professions is attuned to specific flavors of energy, and if I try to channel energy of the wrong kind into that profession, most of it will be lost.”

“Okay, but as hard as it is to gain XP in that profession…”

“John, if I took all the energy I’ve put into your Scholar, Sailor, Warrior, and Investigator professions over the past few days and channeled it into Inquisitor, you might – just might – gain a single XP. It’s that wasteful.”

I dropped the matter, reminding myself that Sara knew what she was doing a hell of a lot better than I did, and I really had no business second-guessing her. What can I say? I’m a bit of a control freak, I suppose.

In any case, my training yielded some decent results. In addition to the skill rank gains, pretending to be a noble brought my Disguise skill to Adept 7, while the training bumped Endurance to Adept 6, Axes and Knives both to Adept 8, and Twilight Mastery to Initiate 4.

All that was great, but it wasn’t why I trained so hard. I trained because, really, there was nothing else to do aboard the ship. I couldn’t join the crew – that would be totally out of character – and I couldn’t read the books from Borava or the Lomoraji where anyone else could see them. That left me with either training or standing at the rails, staring at the ocean for hours on end. That wasn’t exactly my idea of a fun time.

The days and nights passed swiftly. Late on the third day, the Eye left the Depthless Sea and turned north, heading toward the mouth of a wide river that flowed past a large city. I peered at the tall spires and wood-shingled roofs that soared above the stone walls. The city looked larger than Panja, and the harbor created where bent inward toward the city seemed to hold far more ships. To my surprise, the captain didn’t steer toward the harbor but aimed the ship up the river.

“Isn’t that Mihabag?” I asked.

“Has the Sun blasted your senses?” the man laughed. “That’s Jimreni, the city of the Fellwood. Mihabag’s on Sun Lake, at the head of the Fell River, here.”

The ship sailed up the river for an hour or so, driven by the wind, until the open farmland to either side yielded to the looming branches of a dark, deciduous forest. Unlike most such forests I’d seen on Earth, all the trees there seemed to be of the same type, with a thick trunk, wide leaves with three purple-orange lobes, and ridged, gray bark. The trees crowded together, blocking out the wind, and the captain ordered the sailors to bring out the oars and start rowing.

“This is the Fellwood,” the captain told me as we entered. “Keep an eye out; there are things in these woods that love the taste of omeni.”

I quickly realized that the man wasn’t exaggerating when a pair of the bobcat-like pisiks leaped from a passing branch and attacked two of the crew pulling at the oars. The sailors dispatched the monsters quickly, but that was only the beginning. A hawklike somke stooped on the ship less than an hour later, stunning one of the men with a scream as it dove on him. That fell to Renica’s crossbow, and I killed the trio of red-furred, foxlike vulpiks that swarmed over the forecastle during my practice. The monsters swarmed out of the forest regularly, never killing anyone but wounding someone more often than not.

“Is the river always like this?” I asked Karol quietly between attacks.

“Mostly,” the man nodded. “They call this the Fellwood for a reason, after all. It’s a dangerous place, overrun by monsters, and those that come here to harvest the wood are brave souls, indeed.”

“So, why do they? The Darkwood villages seem to produce plenty of lumber…”

“Ha!” he chuckled. “Lad, the Eye, here, takes more wood than one of those villages produces in half a year! Darkwood trees are hard to fell, even harder to cut into lumber, and nearly impossible to shape. While dawnleaf wood is softer and less durable, a man can cut down ten of them in the time it takes him to bring down one darkwood tree. They’re easier for the lumber mills to turn into planks, as well, and while green, they can be bent and shaped fairly easily. That’s what this ship and every ship you see is made of.”

Several of what the captain identified as logging camps hugged the river, but I didn’t see a single village as we passed. I presumed that was due to the danger of the Fellwood; if the animals in it swarmed as thickly as they seemed to, building a village inside would be risky at best. Add the danger of the moon-cursed to that, and it made sense that no one wanted to live there. Temporary camps like the tent cities of the loggers could be quickly moved or abandoned if needed, but not a permanent village.

After a day and a half of rowing – the ship anchored overnight to give the crew a rest, the ship finally broke out of the trees, into areas dominated by farmland once more. The sails dropped once more, and the ship picked up in the freshening breeze. Orchards dotted both sides of the riverbank, along with large, walled villages that spread out in both directions. As they sailed north, the villages grew larger and clumped closer together, turning into walled towns that bustled with people.

“There it is,” the captain finally said, pointing toward the front of the ship. I peered forward and saw a huge, golden spire jutting up into the sky, beaming radiantly in the setting rays of the sun. “The Great Cathedral of Mihabag,” he said grandly. “We’ve reached the capital, good sir, just as I promised!”

I barely heard his words. The moment I looked at that spire, my stomach tightened as I sensed the imbalance radiating from it. Any doubt about my path vanished; the reason I was on this world waited directly ahead of me.